what we want
by aggressive yodeling
Summary: Jack coughs, a brittle noise rattling up from his chest. Roger sighs. 'You know I can't let you eat this rubbish.' A cabinet door shuts and the tap spurts to life. 'Thirteen tubs of ice cream aren't going to make you feel any better.' - When Jack comes down with a summer cold, he sends Roger on a very important mission. Jack/Roger. Sickfic? Ambiguous post-island/modern AU. Oneshot.


Jack stirs when he hears plastic crinkle and sag onto the table beside him. "Who's that? Who's-?" He pushes the throw pillow off his eyes. It's at least 100 degrees and harsh orange light falls in slats on the wall. Something shadowy crosses the room. Long legs, swishing denim, the sweet smell of antifreeze. Jack blinks at the clock, but the numbers are a red blur, and tries to remember where he put his knife.

"It's me," says a familiar voice. Jack sighs as the figure comes back into view. He'd recognize those shoulders anywhere, broad even in their slump.

"Roger," Jack grins toothlessly at the face above him, then scowls when he remembers. "It's been hours. What took so long?"

"Did you think it'd be easy to track down thirteen tubs of neapolitan Ben and Jerry's at one in the morning?"

"I thought you could do it."

"I did," Roger waves a hand at the dark mass on the table. "If it melts, I'm not mopping it up."

"You absolute bastard," He rolls onto his side, nose pressed to the cool leather of the couch. "Fuck. You're blocking the fan. Just put it in the freezer, will you."

Roger strings the bags along his arms and disappears, boots thumping from hardwood to linoleum. Bottles clink as the refrigerator door swings open. "Are you feeling any better?"

Jack coughs, a brittle noise rattling up from his chest, in response.

"Okay, then I'm bringing you water."

"No, I want ice cream." He whines. "I'm sick and my life's hell. Grant me this one pleasure."

"You know I can't let you eat this rubbish. Shouldn't have even bought it for you." A cabinet door shuts and the tap spurts to life. "You're sick. You said it yourself, and thirteen tubs of ice cream aren't going to make you feel any better."

"Yes it will."

"No," He stomps back into the room and Jack feels him even before he sits on the edge of the couch. "it won't. Come on, drink up."

Jack pivots his shoulders and blinks. He can make out the sharpness of Roger's chin, his pinched brows. A band of light falls directly across the bridge of his nose. There are sallows under his eyes.

Jack accepts the glass after some time, hoping the dark will conceal his shaking hands. With little assistance and much difficulty, he sits up and brings the drink to his lips. The glass is pleasantly cool and soon emptied. He passes it off to Roger, who sets it on the coffee table.

"See, that wasn't hard. No need to be such a little bitch about it."

"Piss off." Jack returns to his slump, drawing his wrist across his forehead to clear the sweat. There is a silence permeated by a drunk couple laughing below his window, movement in the flat above, a distant car alarm. A thickness in the air non attributed to the heat.

"When did you last sleep?" says Jack.

Roger pauses, whether in shame or in remembrance neither can tell. "Three days."

"All right, then. You're spending the night."

He shrugs and toes off his boots, which Jack knows is both a "yes sir" and an admittance of defeat. Kicking them under the table, Roger stands.

He takes one step and looks back. "Aren't you coming?"

"Don't wanna move." Jack offers his most shit-eating grin. "Carry me."

Roger sighs and bends to scoop him up, an elbow under Jack's knees and a hand on his back. He lifts with a swift inhale.

"You're heavier than I remember."

"You're douchier than I remember."

In the hallway, Jack's toenails scrape along the wall, tracing a path to his bedroom. It's pitch dark in there, blinds shut against the outside, the blades of a ceiling fan whisking hot air. Roger maneuvers through piles of laundry, each a varying degree of cleanliness, to the unmade bed.

"It's like 10th year all over again," Jack muses, fiddling with the zipper on Roger's windbreaker. "Remember? Twisted my leg up in the woods."

"You kept trying to walk on it, Tough Mr. Merridew. We could all tell how much it hurt, you know," His lips twitch into a smile. "even before you fell over. It was pretty funny too, 'til we realized you were crying and-"

"Oh, shut up." Jack flushes. "That's not the part I meant. I meant the part where I made everyone go away. Everyone but you. And I made you carry me. I made you, but you did it."

"You didn't make me do anything and we both know that." he says. "We both know that I'd do anything for you."

"Like get me a bowl of ice cream?"

Roger drops him.

Jack's laughter squeaks along with his boxspring. The dull ache in his neck and shoulders returns, accompanied now by a pinching, wiggly sort of thing under his ribs. He pauses to have a coughing spell, but it's peppered with hiccuping snorts. He is laughing when Roger leaves and still laughing when Roger returns a minute later, spooning something into his mouth.

"Holy shit, did you seriously?"

"No," He discards his jacket and sinks onto the edge of the mattress. "This is for me as a reward for dealing with your bullshit- don't say anything! You are your own bullshit, so shut up, you can't have any." He puts a glob of the stuff in his mouth.

Jack slithers over to rest his head on Roger's stationary arm, unwashed red curls tickling an inner elbow. Roger regards him with blank annoyance, crossing his ankles among a mass of bedsheet.

"Right," Jack sneers. "Can't have any of the food. Food that I specifically requested. And paid for. With my own money. Makes a lot of fuckin' sense, that does. Especially considering where you are. You know, in my bed, My bed that I paid for. With my own-"

Roger puts the spoon in Jack's mouth to shut him up.


End file.
